I'm Waiting for You: And Other Stories

By Kim Bo-young

“Her fiction is a breath-taking piece of a cinematic art itself. Reminiscent of the world we experienced in Matrix, Inception, and Dark City, still it leads us to this entirely original structure, which is a ground-breaking, mystic literary and cinematic experience. Indeed, powerful and graceful.”—Bong Joon-ho, Oscar-winning director of Parasite

In this mind-expanding work of speculative fiction, available in English for the first time, one of South Korea’s most treasured writers explores the driving forces of humanity—love, hope, creation, destruction, and the very meaning of existence—in two pairs of thematically interconnected stories.

Two worlds, four stories, infinite possibilities 

In “I’m Waiting for You” and “On My Way,” an engaged couple coordinate their separate missions to distant corners of the galaxy to ensure—through relativity—they can arrive back on Earth simultaneously to make it down the aisle. But small incidents wreak havoc on space and time, driving their wedding date further away. As centuries on Earth pass and the land and climate change, one thing is constant: the desire of the lovers to be together. In two separate yet linked stories, Kim Bo-Young cleverly demonstrate the idea love that is timeless and hope springs eternal, despite seemingly insurmountable challenges and the deepest despair.

In “The Prophet of Corruption” and “That One Life,” humanity is viewed through the eyes of its creators: godlike beings for which everything on Earth—from the richest woman to a speck of dirt—is an extension of their will. When one of the creations questions the righteousness of this arrangement, it is deemed a perversion—a disease—that must be excised and cured. Yet the Prophet Naban, whose “child” is rebelling, isn’t sure the rebellion is bad. What if that which is considered criminal is instead the natural order—and those who condemn it corrupt? Exploring the dichotomy between the philosophical and the corporeal, Kim ponders the fate of free-will, as she considers the most basic of questions: who am I?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Apr 6, 2021
• ISBN: 9780062951489

Book preview

I’m Waiting for You

Translated by Sophie Bowman

His First Letter

One day into the voyage, one day in Earth time

I SAID GOODBYE TO THE GUYS, AS THEY WON’T BE SEEING ME until the wedding. In four years and six months, to be precise. They all said they’d come. We took photos and I gave each of them a small leather frame on a lanyard to hold the pictures. The wedding venue gave them to me for free when I paid the deposit on our booking. I told them to come to the ceremony wearing the photos around their necks so I won’t have to go around asking each of them who they are. They made fun of me too. It must be great to be getting married. Leaving your pesky friends behind, huh? You interstellar marrying types are all traitors.

I told them it wouldn’t be an easy time for me either. I almost got punched when I added it was going to take me a whole eight weeks to get to our wedding day. A month to get up to the speed of light, and a month to slow down enough to make a safe landing. That’s how it works. And that’s even with the newest engine and latest gravity controller. It’s always at least two months, however fancy the ship.

I REMEMBER HOW worried you were before leaving for Alpha Centauri with your family four and a half years ago.

Are you sure you’ll be all right? you asked me. It’ll be only four months for me, but over four and a half years for you. And that’s assuming you’ll take a space journey to cut your waiting time by half. It won’t be easy, you know.

I’ll be fine, I said, our foreheads touching. I tried to make you laugh: You really got lucky, didn’t you! When we meet again I’ll be two years older than you, instead of the other way around. Finally, you gave a goofy smile.

You know what they say, my friends teased, people really mellow out after an interstellar journey. Either that or go crazy. Must be something to do with spending months on end doing nothing.

I told them I wouldn’t have time to loaf about. I’d have two months’ worth of work with me. Different ledgers to sort out, accounts analysis, research on my firm’s competitors, sales figures. To be honest, it’ll all be outdated in four and a half years, but as they said at the office, they don’t really expect much. They’ll just be looking to see if I made the effort.

I MET SOME other grooms-to-be on the ship and we all decided to share a cabin. Every night we stay up chatting, joke around and boast about our fiancées. You won’t believe how cheesy these guys are; the big romantics made the place look like a wedding cake. They hung ribbons and paper flowers around the cabin, and the ship attendants had to chase them around attaching everything to the walls with Velcro. One of the attendants explained that if the acceleration stops, we’ll lose gravity, and the room would be chaos.

Speaking of hopeless romantics, I bought something for you at the flea market on board. The seller called it a music ring and said she could put whatever songs I wanted in it. I thought of a few for you and got her to put them in. If you press the jewel it plays one of the songs. I hope you’ll give them a listen.

THE SHIP’S LIKE a small city. It’s got that flea market and cafés as well. Sure, the company I work for makes parts for space vessels, but I only ever saw the parts, never all the parts put together. I get a kick out of reading the user instructions for the different parts printed on stickers around the ship. I was the one who edited them. I’ve even taken some photos to show my friends how my work’s being used.

It’s getting really dull after almost a day on board, though. I thought in space I’d get to see loads of stars, but I couldn’t see a single one when I got a chance to look out a window. You know how you can’t see anything when you’re in a brightly lit house and it’s dark outside? Well, it’s always nighttime in space. Whatever, it’s fine. It’s only two months.

The people on board call this route the Orbit of Waiting. It draws a helix around the sun and then returns to the place it departed from.

Everyone on the ship is emigrating to a different time, not a different place. Trying to get to the future faster, for whatever reason. Some people are traveling to the year their pension plan matures, others hope real estate taxes will come down while they’re away. There are artists too, who believe they were born in the wrong era. I even met a high school student who’s waiting for the new university entrance exam that’s supposed to be implemented soon. And there are other dopes like me, of course, traveling to arrive back on Earth at the same time as our fiancées flying in from other stellar systems.

The year we all end up arriving in will be better than the one we left. Discrimination against people coming back from other stellar systems shouldn’t be so bad, and welfare and state pensions will have improved too. The busy hive of people on Earth will rush around putting things together, taking things apart, then fixing them, right in time for us to benefit. Though I guess that’s the kind of attitude people scorn with the saying blowing your nose into someone else’s hands.

It might sound over-the-top, but when I think about our wedding I’m too excited to sleep. I toss and turn in bed like a little kid, hug my pillow tight, and hum myself to sleep. When I open my eyes in the morning, I picture you lying next to me. Even just imagining us like that makes me so happy. Sometimes I hide under the blankets and dream about what it’d be like to be a dad. I even imagine a baby wriggling on the bed between us. I don’t know how I’ll manage to wait two more months. Another day is hard enough to bear. I wish I could be with you right now.

I love you.

His Second Letter

One month into the voyage, about four years and four months later in Earth time

I ONLY GOT YOUR MESSAGE WHEN WE REACHED LIGHT SPEED. So you’ll be arriving on Earth two months later than planned. No, three months later in Earth time . . .

It’s all right. There’s nothing you could have done when your ship received an SOS signal with no other vessels around to take the call. One of the attendants here said, It’s not common, but it’s not that rare either. What does that even mean? I guess he must have meant that, although the universe is boundless, the travel routes are on fixed coordinates, so things like that just happen sometimes.

I asked if they could extend our journey a little so I won’t have to wait the whole three months on Earth, but they said that wasn’t possible. The ship’s schedule is fixed, and there’s no other option, I’ll just have to wait out the three months after we land.

I was looking out the window, feeling depressed, when I saw a merchant ship anchored to ours. Boxes of snacks and sacks of parcels were coming and going between them. I just stared out at the ship for a while, but then suddenly came to my senses. I asked where it was going and someone explained it was a ship that goes between passenger liners selling stuff. I asked what day it was set to arrive back on Earth, and would you believe it, it was exactly three months later! I’d hit the jackpot.

I caused a bit of a scene when I said I was going to transfer onto the other ship. I couldn’t see what the problem was. Why can’t I just change ships? I asked. It’s right there.

That ship may appear stationary, the ship’s captain bellowed back at me, but we’re currently moving at 293,000 kilometers a second. Typhoons that destroy apartment blocks are only tens of kilometers per second at most. He was so tall he towered over me and he looked like a ruthless warrior. I wish I could show you his face. He’d fit right in on some Manchurian plain beheading people from atop a galloping horse . . . if only he’d been born in the right era.

I asked why people couldn’t go back and forth when objects could. He said that they just couldn’t. I asked why not and he said, Because it’s never been done.

I refused to let it go and carried on. Earth moves around the sun at thirty kilometers per second, and the sun moves around the galaxy at two hundred and twenty kilometers per second. Our galaxy is flying toward the Virgo cluster at six hundred kilometers per second. But that doesn’t demolish apartment blocks on Earth, does it?

Despite my best efforts, he kept insisting, saying there was no mention of it in the regulations.

I never dreamed I’d have to live another three months without you. I explained to the captain that I’m a groom on my way to meet my bride, and that if I had to wait an extra three months I’d probably shrivel up and die. I told him, if the waiting kills me, I’ll become a vengeful bachelor spirit, wandering the universe eternally unsatisfied, and haunt his dreams every night. Luckily, he didn’t seem to understand a word.

IT WAS ONLY after I changed ships that I wondered whether I might have made a mistake. Our wedding venue was already booked for that date, and I’d paid a big deposit. Who knows whether the message that we need to postpone for three months will get through? What can we do if they won’t return our deposit?

I’m worried about the tenants I rented my apartment to as well. The agreement was that they’d live there for four and a half years and then clear out. But what if they go behind my back and claim property rights because I didn’t return when I said I would? I’ll have to rush straight home as soon as I land at the port.

IN THIS SHIP you don’t get the feeling that you’re moving. There’s no wind and no noise. The stars all lean to one side, streaks across the window. All the stars in the universe shimmering in one place. On here the whole universe, Earth, my home, my friends all pass me by at the speed of light, and it feels like I’m standing perfectly still. So time is standing still for me too.

Someone once said that space and time are actually the same thing.

That would mean going to a different time is the same as going to a different place.

My dad lived his whole life in his hometown, but around the time he passed away it was like he’d traveled the entire world. In fact, he really did. By the time he passed away our hometown was a completely different place from where he was born. Buildings had been put up and roads laid, mountains flattened, and the courses of rivers diverted. Time moved him to somewhere completely different. Who could possibly say that he lived in one place his whole life?

The elderly captain of the merchant ship questioned me, so I told him about you. He asked how I could possibly still be in love after waiting so long. I explained to him that I’d been waiting for all the twenty-five years of my life before I met you.

The more I think about it, the more amazing it feels; it won’t be long now. I know you’ll be just like I remember you. You won’t have changed a bit.

They’ve got no regrets, the guys that take these ships, the captain said as he poured me another drink. It was all right up to that point, but when he went on with, They’ve got no friends, no family, or even if they do, they don’t like them very much . . . I just left and came back to my cabin.

His Third Letter

One month and three days into the voyage, four years and eight months later in Earth time

I’M SORRY, SWEETHEART.

So sorry. I really didn’t know things would turn out like this.

The captain said he’d made a mistake and gotten the time and acceleration calculations wrong. Someone asked how much longer it would take, and he said that for us it would only be a few minutes. Then he added that our arrival on Earth would be three years later. He went back inside his cabin with a totally bland expression, like some aircraft pilot who’s just announced a delay of ten minutes due to bad weather. Merchants in Arab- and Indian-style clothes started getting up one by one and going back to their cabins without even a frown. They looked as though they were thinking, Three years, huh? That’s not so bad, I thought it’d be five at least.

A little while later a stewardess came around handing out letter paper and told us to write to our families or close friends. When I asked, Don’t you use quantum mail or something? she explained that the only parts of the ship made in the twenty-first century were the hull and the engine. Even the solar wind warning system runs like a wind-up alarm clock. She added, When it comes to machines, simple ones last the longest.

I asked how my letter would be sent, and she said it would be converted into Morse code or something, and then transmitted out into the universe. Ships passing nearby would pick up the signals, amplify them, and send them out again. The ships that received the amplified signals would send them out again, passing on the message. Wow, I thought, what a surefire way of getting through! Why didn’t the postal service ever think of hurling letters from one speeding truck to another?

I told the stewardess that I’d booked a wedding venue, that my bride was already on her way, flying 4.37 light-years to be there. How the hell can a groom be three years late for his own wedding? The attendant made a poor you face but didn’t seem to care. She patted my shoulder and said, If you have an important appointment it’s best to take a ship run by a big corporation with comprehensive insurance.

I woke up ten times in the night. What if my letter doesn’t get through? What if you get it and turn back in anger? What if you get mad and turn back but don’t bother to write? What if you write a reply but I don’t get it?

Every time I fell asleep again I dreamed the same dream: I disembark on Earth to find you coming toward me with one of my friends and a baby in your arms. Then you say, A letter? I didn’t get any letter, and start to laugh. Then I’m at some bar with my friends. They’re all chatting away and I’m sitting in the corner alone, downing glasses of soju.

Don’t laugh. I mean it. What could be more pathetic than that?

I’m begging you, sweetheart.

Wait for me.

Just three years. Please. Just three years. I promise I’ll be good for the rest of our life together. What do you say, huh?

His Fourth Letter

One month and twenty-five days into the voyage, seven years, eight months, and twenty-five days later in Earth time

I GOT YOUR LETTER.

So mine got through after all. It was a real surprise. To be honest, it’s even more surprising that your reply reached me, here on this old ship. We were both lucky, huh? Though it sounds stupid to say in these circumstances.

I’VE NO IDEA what processes your message went through, but I got it as a voicemail. It was pretty weird listening to your words spoken in a man’s voice. It sounded like he didn’t understand the content of what he was reading, like he was just looking at phonetic symbols and sounding them out. It was hard to decipher, so I listened to it over and over. Then, once I’d gotten the meaning, I listened to it some more.

I understand. It’s all because of me. None of this was your fault. You did the right thing in changing ships. I changed ships because I couldn’t bear waiting another three months to see you, but for you it would have been three years.

You said that almost as soon as you disembarked on Earth you got on the next departing ship. That you were in such a hurry you took the first ticket you could get out of there, and boarded a research vessel going prospecting instead of an Orbit of Waiting space liner. Those research ships are so old now, many of them are kept running long after they should have been sold for scrap.

Thank god you were able to take shelter after the accident, even if the facility is a long way from the usual routes.

DON’T CRY, LOVE. Every so often in the letter there was a weird huk-huk-huk sound, and I wondered for ages what it was. Somewhere along the line a machine must have transcribed your crying that way.

ELEVEN YEARS, THOUGH!

I listen to your letter again. This is what I can hear.

I’M FINE. JUST a few scratches. But one of the crew died fixing the ship. Still, they’re saying if it hadn’t been for that crew member we wouldn’t have gotten this far.

The ship’s captain says that it’s only freight carriers or research vessels that pass by this space stop. And they can only take a certain number of people, so we had to draw lots. My number came out with two options. I could wait here for two more months and then board a Light Voyager back to Alpha Centauri, or else take a hibernation-type freight carrier to Earth that will arrive here next month.

I asked when the freight carrier would arrive on Earth. They said eleven years from now.

The captain told me to take the Light Voyager and go back to my family in Alpha Centauri. That Earth eleven years from now isn’t a place where anyone would want to live. That it’ll be uninhabitable, even for people who have been there all their lives, let alone those returning from years on other planets.

I said I had to go to Earth anyway. The other passengers all laughed when I explained that my fiancé would be waiting for me. According to them, there isn’t a single man alive who would wait around for eleven years to get married.

I know it might sound strange . . . but I’m not only going there because I think you’ll be waiting for me.

By the time you get this letter I’ll already be in deep sleep. Write back. I’ll be able to read anything you send when I wake up. Whatever you decide to do, I’ll try not to be hurt. I’ve made my decision, you will have made yours.

Huk-huk-huk

No. It’s not true.

No words could describe how much I’m hoping you’ll wait for me. It’s so much that I can’t even bear to wish for it. So I’m going to sleep. That way the painful thoughts will stop.

Will you come out to meet me all the same? Whatever you decide. Whatever state you’re in, I don’t mind. I think I’ll be pretty sad if there’s no one waiting when I arrive. If you’re not there at the port, I’ll go to the wedding venue. Even if I’m on my own I can go and play make-believe.

AND THEN IT ends with a dry voice, saying, Huk-hu-gu-huk-hu-huk.

I’M SORRY. MY sweetheart, I’m so sorry. But I can’t wait eleven years.

We’re already three years late. Seven and a half years have gone by on Earth. Even if I go back now, there’s no guarantee my apartment or my job will still be there. Once someone’s been out of contact for three years they’re worth less than if they were dead. If my uncles have emptied out my bank account and shared the money out to my nieces and nephews, I can’t make them give it back. If my tenant claims my apartment belongs to them, there’s nothing I can say. It wouldn’t be strange if my employers had gone under, considering how the economy was going when I left. And if the company’s been bought up, why would they bother taking back an old employee like me?

Eleven years, no, eighteen years! In eighteen years all my friends will be ancient, and I’ll have no one to hang out with. And where the hell can I use knowledge that’s eighteen years out of date? Everything I know will be completely useless. There’s no guessing whether ordinary workers at parts supply companies will still be able to make a living. After eighteen years of not knowing what’s happening in the world, what could I do to get by?

I’m sorry. I want to go home. This isn’t right. Sure, we can meet eleven years from now, but what use is a wedding if the groom is a homeless, penniless bum? I guess we just weren’t meant to be. I don’t know what went wrong, or when it all started, but everything’s a mess.

You have to stay healthy. Take care of yourself. They say hibernation travel takes a toll on the body. When you get to Earth I’ll treat you to lots of good food. I’ll be there to meet you. I can promise that much. I’ll be there, I won’t forget. I promise. I love you.

His Fifth Letter

Two months into the voyage, seven years and nine months later in Earth time

HOW’VE YOU BEEN?

You haven’t seen the last letter yet, right?

Yeah, of course you haven’t. It’ll take a few more years. But you will have read that letter by the time you read this one.

I . . . well . . . I came back home. Actually, just to the port on Earth. I couldn’t go home. Well, I couldn’t go to the port either. I was stuck on the ship for a week, unable to put my feet on the ground. They put us through all kinds of tests. Fumigation, vaccinations, even a mental health screening. I filled out twenty pages of forms, and I had to do it three times over. When I said, I’ve filled these out already, I got shouted at. There seemed to be thirty different departments working on processing arrivals. The TV on the ship only showed the news, and only one channel at that. All the internet portals had gone down too, so I couldn’t access my emails.

After a week of our being stuck on the ship in the port, some plucky kid still wet behind the ears stormed in with a trail of recruits behind him and started mouthing off. He had a real temper, like he had a stomachache. He went on and on about how it’s all because of the old generation, people like us; it was our laziness and inaction that got the country into such a mess. That was a bit much, I thought. It’d only been seven years.

According to this guy, a terrorist group had taken over Seoul. But the city was still safe. I couldn’t understand what that was supposed to mean. The brave national forces would put the insurrection down soon enough, he said, but we couldn’t be processed properly if we entered the port, so we should leave and come back later. There was a big commotion with people clamoring to get off and go home, but the grumpy kid and his entourage just left.

A little later a woman from the Red Cross or Lawyers for Democracy or somewhere came in and told us that there had been a military coup. The party that had lost the election had proclaimed martial law and seized control of congress, but citizens were fighting back. When someone asked what the UN was doing, she explained that America had filed for bankruptcy the year before, and the whole world was in economic collapse in the aftermath. So the overall situation wasn’t great.

She said that if we came back in about ten years’ time the global economy should be in a better state, and things would be much more stable. She told us to get a move on. That this was our last chance to escape, while the country was still relatively safe. If we waited much longer and a declaration was made restricting

Reviews for I'm Waiting for You

[guide2_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

2 sets of short stories/novellas. The set about the couple travelling through space/time to meet for their wedding had an interesting conept, even if completely unrealistic. The fact that it was written on-demand is a nice touch. Could not get into the other set of stories, so only a partial read.

[cassprout · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Very interesting stories with good character development and unique premises.

[whiskeyinthejar-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. I'm Waiting For You and other stories, is a translated collection of four science fiction short stories that explore what it means to be human. The collection has a bookend feel with I'm Waiting For You and On My Way, two connected stories that have main characters tethered by love but separated by space and time. The middle two stories, The Prophet of Corruption and That One Life, blend Korean mythology, science, and science fiction. The latter half of the book gives us author, translator, and original reader's notes and a glossary. I would suggest reading the glossary before The Prophet of Corruption to familiarize yourself with the terms used in the story to get a stronger foothold in the world. However, I think the author and original reader's notes should be read after all the stories are read because of the different impact they will have and how it will make you want to go back and read two of the stories again. I'm Waiting For YouSomeone once said that space and time are actually the same thing.The first story and my favorite, introduces us to a man traveling in the universe to get back to earth for his wedding. It's told in loose letter form, he's sending letters to his fiancée and the reader gets the essence and sometimes wording of those letters but also observations of what is happening to him. The short story gives us 15 letters but also centuries as mistakes, mishaps, and a mixture of good and bad luck keep the groom from, sometimes when and sometimes where, he needs to be. You'll feel his loneliness, frustration, and will as you'll question along with him what it means to survive. The Prophet of Corruption and That One Life“You'll know you're corrupt the moment you want to put clothes on.”The middle two are the longest and shortest of the collection and probably the two that would give book clubs the most and varied discussions. The blend of mythology with theoretical framework like superstring theory, had this at times confusing and profound to me. As the reader follows along with the character of Naban, they'll question the 'corruption of man' and creation to be human. They who were oblivious to the greatness of survival and scorned life's battles, who failed to see the sacredness of one person's individuality.On My Way To YouThey say that we're taking up food and clothing that should rightfully be theirs to enjoy. They even say that we'll endanger the lives of the women and children. A funny thing to say, really. Half of us are women and children, too.While we started with the groom, this last story gives us the bride and her journey through her letters. She goes through the same give and take of good and bad luck. Having read the groom's story, this one has moments that hit even deeper as you'll see missed opportunities and how close and far away they were from each other. Told through a science fiction lens, this collection was at turns bleak, hopeful, and questioning. The first story will have you thinking that hell is solitude, the middle two will have you thinking that hell is only our own creation, and the last will have you thinking hell is other people. The hopefulness comes from the author's ability to shine through the emotions of love and will. Don't skip the author and original reader's notes as they added an impactful layer to the first and second stories and like I said, will have you going back and reading them again. This is a collection that will have you debating and questioning, lingering in your thoughts, and revisiting, not to be missed even for the causal science fiction reader.